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Nostradamus And Big Data

With my recent passion to learn more about the French history, the country where I’ve been living for half an year now. I had to start reading about the inviolable Nostradamus who is deeply embedded in the roots of the French culture. Reading about his work and visiting his heritage home inspired me to write about him and of course, confront him to my passion for data analysis.

Nostradamus Museum, Salon de Provence, France

While visiting his ancient house (preserved as a museum now), I discovered figures and numbers on the walls, tables and almost everywhere else, depicting the art to handle data manually and obviously without any technologies involved.

Let me jot down the common forecasts we analyze with Big data which might be an example to see if we are behind time or Nostradamus was way ahead centuries ago:

#Climate change

Early predictions by Nostradamus which later, were recognized as Zodiac signs

Nostradamus: A lot of Nostradamus’s predictions were exact before centuries. He predicted a number of gradual climate changes that will occur and affect the earth. He also mentioned green house effect in his early prophecies and their adverse effects on environment.

21st Century: Scientists do almost exact weather forecasts today. The simulations produced are available from a broader range of models. Taken together with additional information from observations, these provide a quantitative basis for estimating likelihoods for many aspects of future climate change. Model simulations cover a range of possible futures including idealized emission or concentration assumptions.
The concept of green house gases is a World known fact now, and many major consequences of global warming are well documented. This has been already documented in some of Nostradamus’s prophecies as a reason for more droughts and floods in coming future.

#Zodiac signs

Nostradamus: Centuries ago, zodiac signs were discovered and practiced by Nostradamus, by looking at the position of different stars in the solar system.

21 Century: Scientists and researchers have scientific explanations now behind the concept of zodiac signs, that are based on Motion Of Celestial Bodies. These concepts are well elucidated by physicists.

#Diseases

#Nostradamus: During the deadly outbreaks of plague disease, when million of people lost their lives looking for a cure,Nostradamus was the most famous doctor during black death years. He recommended his patients to drink only boiled water, to sleep in clean beds and to leave infected towns as soon as it was possible. It was him, who saved lives of countless people by explaining them basic hygiene tips and prophylactic measures.

21 Century: Scientists identified different strains of diseases, can anticipate their virulence, developed treatments and eradicated totally or partially specific diseases from the planet (Rinderpest). Many antibiotics have been introduced since centuries now along with the thorough understanding and knowledge of the disease.

Careful study of data drawn about disease’s geographical distribution pattern have helped scientists to trace contacts & take necessary control measures for households located in high risk areas, strengthening of disease surveillance and case management, and sensitization of the affected population.

# He also gave clues about the consequences of attacks on environment (which were interpreted as nuclear attacks by many authors) as “the sky will boil at 45°”. While looking at the facts, I found an interesting research work stating the global temperatures plunges upto 20°C to 40°C for several months after a nuclear attack, which matches nearly as documented by him.

Nostradamus’s extraordinary and crucial contributions to the world are beyond words can explain. But a question still arises, will Big data replace Nostradamus for the upcoming centuries?

In all cases, hundreds of Nostradamus’s prophecies about sudden tragedies and natural calamities are beyond the level of calculations, no matter how much technological advancements can predict!